3 Reasons Nvidia Must Fire A Major Customer

While revenue growth can be intoxicating, empire building dressed as “scaling” often implodes when senior leaders ignore or underestimate customer risk.

Trailblazer Nvidia might very well be on that path.

Its customer, Super Micro (SMCI), returned to the headlines this month when the Department of Justice indicted co-founder and board member Wally Liaw and two associates for allegedly conspiring to illegally divert AI servers to China.

In 2024 and 2025, an Asian intermediary purchased approximately $2.5 billion of SMCI servers — many assembled in the US — which were then repackaged in unmarked boxes and shipped to Chinese end users. To trick regulators and compliance staff, the defendants staged thousands of manually relabeled dummy servers — several with serial numbers removed with hair dryers.

The Wall Street Journal’s Dan Gallagher astutely argued that SMCI’s fate effectively rests with its chipmaker Nvidia. That’s technically true from a supply chain perspective, but a flipped question’s better. Can Nvidia’s reputation, growth aims and on-again-off-again, export-controls dance bear such a distraction?

Well-compensated boards rarely judge revenue sources, but there are three reasons CEO Jensen Huang and his Nvidia directors must act decisively — and swiftly.

No Remorse

Here’s what “polite” revenue forecasting often misses entirely.

1. Nvidia…